Advanced Stats - Pitching Charts: Tuesday, April 21st

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2015-04-24 14:34:04

This is what a normal Tuesday looks like in the flow of a baseball season. We run the gamut of a full 15 game schedule tonight without a single afternoon affair. There will be stats for all pitchers, but we’re going to focus on the really interesting stuff. If there’s nothing written about a pitcher, then it’s probably just not that interesting or necessary. There just isn’t enough time to really dig into every single nuance.

Most of the stats in these charts are pulled directly from the Fangraphs.com database. If a stat is used that you are not familiar with and want to learn more about, their glossary does a terrific job of explaining all of the advanced stats I use in these charts.

Starting Pitching Main Chart

NOTE – Team defense stats are still 2014 as UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating) is not available for 2015 yet.

Brandon Morrow has always had the “stuff”, but is often injured and had trouble putting everything together. His first start was great and his second against the D’Backs was good also, though the velocity and SwStr% were down just a little. Colorado is too scary of a proposition for just about any pitcher.

Brett Anderson has been basically what you’d expect a healthy Brett Anderson to look like. San Francisco, the park and the team, should agree with him. Although, he’s about so many ground balls when going right, the park rarely seems to matter.

Bud Norris rematches the team that smashed him in his first start. It was a little better last time out.

Carlos Carrasco was the victim of a scary beaning on a line drive off the bat of the second batter he faced in his second start. Note that he’s only faced 25 batters this season when looking at his stats today. Thankfully, he seems to be ok and now hopes to pick up where he left off in the second half last year and his first dominant start this year.

Chase Anderson has faced two tough offenses (LAD, SDP) to start the season and acquitted himself fairly well. He missed a few bats last year, but had problems when contact was made: too many lline drives and HRs. A slightly higher ground ball rate early on might help him with his HR problem. He has a good matchup, but his home park does not really fit his style of pitching.

Chris Archer is our first man to four starts and his most recent was his most dominant, striking out 11 Blue Jays without allowing a run. He’s had at least an 11.8 SwStr% and 20.8 K% in every start and has allowed a total of six base runners over his last 14 innings. It looks like he’s throwing slightly harder and more sliders, which have been nearly unhittable. It also looks like he’s mostly switched out his sinker for much more four seam usage if Pitch F/X is to be believed.

Colin McHugh has combated a slightly elevated BABIP by just striking 30% of the batters he’s faced out over two starts. Most the damage was done with 11 strikeouts in his second start vs Oakland, but he missed plenty of bats in both. His ground ball rate sits at an astounding 66.7%. That makes 35 of the 47 batters he’s faced who have either struck out or grounded out. He too has increased his slider usage up to 41.7% from 30.5% last year, complimented by one of the top curveballs in baseball.

Dan Haren continues to miss fewer bats each year, but it hasn’t hurt his overall results yet. His luck continues as he draws the Phillies tonight.

Drew Pomeranz has only walked one with 11 strikeouts through two starts. The Angels have yet to get the bats going.

Francisco Liriano is coming off a great start against a tough Detroit team. He’s consistently near the top of the league in missed bats (he’s 4th in SwStr% this year), but so far his walk rate has been league average as well. The Cubs have an offense now and they’re calling up all the top prospects, even ones they don’t own.

Gio Gonzalez continues to have issues with his walk rate, but is also having issues missing bats as well so far. He does have a 25.3 K% at home since the start of last season and the Cardinals have struck out in 29.8% of their road plate appearances, but much less frequently (14.4%) as a team over the last week.

Jason Marquis is someone I really don’t want to have to talk about today, but he’s missing a ton of bats. How the hell is he missing a ton of bats? The only difference I see is that he’s throwing a few more changeups and a few less sliders. He’s also been walking quite a few batters and hasn’t really had great results. The pathetic Milwaukee bats might make it even harder to ignore him today.

Jason Vargas isn’t interesting, but is often somehow effective at home (fly balls and outfield defense). He hasn’t pitched there yet this year and faces a Minnesota team that beat up on him on the road in his last start. This same Minnesota team has been atrocious away from home and against LHP early on. Vargas has a 2.3 BB% at home as he really has little to worry about in that park with that defense. The Twins have an absurd 1.7 HR/FB and 25.0 IFFB% in 247 road plate appearances.

Lance Lynn has been extremely effective over his first two starts, but faced a weaker Cubs offense in his first start and the terrible Brewers in his second. Today, he gets a Washington offense that is just starting to get closer to full strength. He has had a large home/road split throughout his young career as well and that has entirely to do with an 11.0 HR/FB away from St Louis and depressed 4.6 HR/FB at home.

Mike Fiers may not see the irony in missing more bats (though mostly in his first start), yet seeing the things he has less control over go the opposite way, against him, through two starts. The Reds are basically a two man wrecking crew. There’s a Frazier and a healthy Votto, then everybody else.

Nathan Eovaldi found the strikeout pitch in his second start, following a one strikeout performance with 13 swings and misses and nine strikeouts. Only it seemed more like it was the slider than the much hyped new change/splitter. Detroit was shut down by the soft tossing Sabathia last night, but are still imposing and may be more successful against the flame thrower.

Taijuan Walker has been a complete mess so far. He’s found it difficult to throw strikes and has as many walks as strikeouts. Because he has to come over the plate with fastballs after falling behind, he’s getting smashed for 30 LD% and he’s not stranding anybody.

Tim Lincecum hasn’t been terrible and pitches in a great park, but his velocity and K% are still in free fall and he faces the baddest offense in all the NL tonight.

Tommy Milone had some BABIP fueled success in his first start, not so much in his second. He normally doesn’t miss enough bats to offer much upside, but has down so at an at least league average rate through both starts.

Travis Wood was so bad last year that I might not even want to look at him until the All Star break, no matter what he does. The Pirates have only 38 plate appearances of futility vs LHP, striking out 12 times.

Trevor Cahill was someone I thought might have potential, throwing ground balls in front of Andrelton Simmons, but his first start was awful, partially because there were just as many walks and line drives as ground balls. That was just one start though, so we’ll stop our analysis of him today right here.

Tyler Matzek isn’t terrible, but the Padres smashed a lefty in Colorado last night and lean heavily right handed with their power.

Wade Miley threw a slider down and in against Ian Desmond, who golfed it over the Green Monster in his last start. At least he makes his first start in a good park tonight.

Combo K/BB Charts

These are the Combo K & BB numbers from above fleshed out. They are weighted equally in the main chart above. They probably shouldn’t be, but originally were due to size limitations. What’s the correct weighting? Who knows? But now you have all 6 components (Pitcher: L2Yrs, H/R, L14Days – Opposition: H/A, vL/R, L7Days) that make up the above numbers.

Combo K/BB Charts – Opponent

Combo Batted Ball Charts

See the explanation for the K/BB chart above.

Combo Batted Ball Charts – Opponent

K/SwStr Chart (2014 LG AVG – 20.3 K% – 9.3 SwStr% – 2.18 K/SwStr)

Getting called strikeouts can be a skill, but it’s usually not a sustainable one at a large deviation from the league rate (catcher framing and other factors may make some difference here). K% correlates heavily with SwStr% though. Look for a large difference and you might find a potential adjustment before anyone else.

Carlos Carrasco – this all stems from his first start against the susceptible Astros.

Chase Anderson has missed fewer bats through two starts than his league average rate last year, but it hasn’t hurt his strikeout rate yet.

Drew Pomeranz has a few more strikeouts than you’d expect, but his SwStr% is right in line with his career rate, so I’d expect a slight drop in K% to something closer to league average if he remains consistent.

Gio Gonzalez missed just three bats against the Phillies and then six against the Phillies. His K rate has dropped to below average, but still higher than you’d expect from the bats he’s missed.

Hector Noesi has faced just 25 Minnesota batters, but damn that’s impressive! What was equally unimpressive was the six walks.

Hector Santiago did this last year to a slightly lesser extent, though I don’t see any reason why it should continue. He missed just three Texas bats in his last start.

Jason Marquis has a career 6.9 SwStr% and has never even reached 8% in a full season.

Jason Vargas has a slightly higher career SwStr% and never really strikes out a lot of batters, but should see his rate rise some.

Jerome Williams had a 16.1 SwStr% in his first start and just 4.9% in his second when he struck out just one batter. His career rate is actually right around league average despite just a 15.0 career K%.

Lance Lynn struck out a few more Cubs than expected in his first outing, but returned to something more normal in his second.

Mike Fiers is actually missing bats at a rate appropriate for his K%, which is new this year.

Wade Miley has thrown fewer fastballs in favor of both his slider and changeup, but it’s resulted in fewer swings and misses than last year thus far.

ERA Estimators Chart (2014 LG AVG – 3.80 ERA – 3.72 SIERA – 3.80 xFIP – 3.80 FIP)

How a pitcher’s ERA matches up against his defense independent estimators.

Brandon Morrow has a 95.6 LOB% through two starts. Everyone would be thrilled if he hit his current estimators though.

Bud Norris is still feeling the effects of getting smashed in his first start. The BABIP and LOB% normalized a bit more in his second start, but it’s going to take a while to shake that first one.

Dan Haren has allowed three solo HRs and stranded every single base runner to go along with his .118 BABIP.

Gio Gonzalez is only stranding 60.3% of his runners. He’s also spiked his GB rate to 58.3% through two starts, allowing just seven fly balls, so when one flies out of the park, he has a 14.3 HR/FB that you shouldn’t pay much attention to yet.

Hector Santiago – few hits and lots of stranded runners (89.3%) so far.

Jason Marquis – two of his 10 fly balls have left the yard and he has a .370 BABIP.

Jon Niese hasn’t had much success missing bats, but has left 86% of his runners on base. He’s allowed just four fly balls (one of which left the park), but has a 27.9 LD%.

Mike Fiers – the low BABIP and high LOB% that carried him last year have done a complete reverse through two starts. To be fair, just as I didn’t expect him to repeat last year, I don’t expect it to continue being so bad the other way either.

Nick Martinez has a 1.9 K-BB%, but has stranded 93.3% of base runners. That somehow leads to a 0.00 ERA, but don’t ask me to do the math. And we haven’t even gotten to the BABIP yet.

Tommy Milone was able to avoid hits in his first start and strand a lot of runners in his second.

Wade Miley has stranded just 39.7% of his runners, mostly in his last start.

BABIP Chart (2014 LG AVG – .295 BABIP – 9.5 IFFB% – 87.2 Z-Contact%)

A couple of years ago, both Dan Rosencheck and Steve Staude separately found that high Infield Fly Ball (IFFB) rates and low Zone Contact (Z-Contact) rates correlated well with lower BABIP for pitchers. I won’t pretend to know how much of the variation in BABIP can be explained by these factors, but since they seem to have some effect, here they are. See if you can use it to your advantage.

It’s presented as the difference between team and pitcher BABIP allowed because team defense can explain a lot of the variance from league average on its own. For example, if a pitcher has a much lower BABIP than his team’s allowed (red), then you look for some factors that may support it and maybe you’re onto something (check batted ball profile too).

Brett Anderson – the .257 BABIP through two starts is 50 points below his career average. His current 2.0 GB/FB is actually his career rate, but it’s been above that in all of his abbreviated seasons since 2010. There’s really not enough information after just 505 career innings to know what his BABIP baseline really is.

Bud Norris – as previously stated, things got a bit better in his second start when he allowed just one line drive compared to the six in his first start.

Chase Anderson – had a slight BABIP issue last year as well, mostly perpetuated by a bad defense and elevated line drive rate. This season, the line drive rate is a bit better so far.

Chris Archer – we know sub 200 BABIPs don’t last, but it’s hard to say he hasn’t deserved it from the positive indicators in this chart in addition to just a 13.3 LD% to go with his 57.8 GB%. His GB rate sat at 46.5% last year.

Collin McHugh – with a 5.0 GB/FB, he’s allowed just four fly balls and six line drives. If they all went for hits, his BABIP would be .333. This is definitely a case of too many grounders getting through.

Dan Haren hasn’t really been that difficult to hit as three of his 16 fly balls have left the yard. He does otherwise have just a 13.5 LD% so far. Regression is coming.

Francisco Liriano as if a BABIP that low isn’t already fluky, it’s made a bit more so by the 24.1 LD%.

Hector Santiago has allowed more line drives than ground balls for a 26.3 LD% so far. He does have an absurd 52.6 FB% with 5 pop ups.

Jason Marquis has a line drive rate below 20% and the lowest Z-Contact% of any of today’s starters with more than one game under their belt.

Jason Vargas doesn’t really miss bats in the zone. His ground ball rate is actually the highest of his career (45.9%) through two starts for this usually pronounced fly ball pitcher. That will probably change as he pitches more at home.

Mike Fiers has an average LD%, but a 48.4 FB%. Without an IFFB, it’s hard to tell how hard or high or not those fly balls are being hit, but the Z-Contact% being so low is a good indicator that he might deserve better.

Nathan Eovaldi – sometimes you get BABIP’d and sometimes you do it to yourself. He has a 28.6 LD% and none of his 11 fly balls have stayed in the infield through two starts.

Nick Martinez has induced four pop ups, but also has a 26.2 LD%, nearly as high as his ground ball rate.

Taijuan Walker – while we can always expect regression in numbers this high, as we discussed earlier, most of his issues are his own fault.

Tommy Milone has shown a talent for pop ups in his career, but not enough to keep his BABIP this low. It hasn’t in the past.

Wade Miley has allowed just two line drives in 25 batted balls. I personally watched some of his fly balls get hit very hard in his last start. As previously mentioned though, not all of those were necessarily bad pitches that deserved such a result.

Pitcher Notes & Summary

Brett Anderson – you probably have a reasonable expectation of a lot of ground balls. And there’s some value in that in a good matchup at a decent price.

Carlos Carrasco is among your more expensive pitchers today and doesn’t get a great park, but if he’s going to continue to pitch like he did in the latter half of last year, his price is likely to be much higher in the future.

Chase Anderson is probably worth his bottom of the board cost, even at home, against the Rangers.

Dan Haren faces the Phillies and that automatically makes him somewhat of an option, even at a slightly higher price than expected in most places.

Drew Pomeranz is cheap and has pitched well. I have to believe the low cost is due the Angel bats, but they have yet to look imposing aside from Trout.

Francisco Liriano – the Cubs offense looks different now and there is danger at a high price that he gets into one of his ruts where he walks the ball park, but Liriano is today’s most consistently elite bat misser and the young Cubs will swing and miss some.

Jason Marquis – if you really want to go contrarian with a guy who’s missed bats at a rate about twice more often than the rest of his career through two starts, you’re getting the lowest price on the board against the worst offense so far. Basically, take away the names and look at just this year’s numbers and you’d think you have a monster bargain. I’m not sure I’m that brave though.

Jason Vargas has little upside, but isn’t entirely useless at home against a team that’s had trouble offensively on the road the last few years.

Lance Lynn – if you look at strength of opponent and take his home/road splits into consideration, he looks less attractive than the other top priced pitchers today, especially when you think about the Nationals getting some hitters back recently. I don’t expect him to get bombed, but I don’t think you can pay top price on the road.

Mike Fiers has a good matchup against Cincinnati, but he’s another guy I’m usually hesitant to pay too much for. He should be a little better than he’s been though.

You can find me on twitter @FreelanceBBall for any questions, comments, or insults.

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